Mise en Place – Preparing the Ingredients
Preparation is what sets apart the good from the best in the kitchen. Top chefs even with all of the special ingredients they use, seem to really have it together when they are preparing meals. As we watch French cooking, the chefs don’t scramble around the kitchen looking for last minute ingredients that have been misplaced or forgotten. Everything always seems to be right there when they need it.
The French have a term for this – mise en place. It basically means “preparing the ingredients”. You chop and measure things out in advance. It may seem as if this will lengthen the cooking time. But it actually shortens it and helps make your food come out better by planning ahead.
Maybe you are not convinced., then consider this. How many times have you left onions or garlic to sauté in a skillet, only to realize that you need to add the mushrooms, right now and the problem is that they are not cleaned or chopped yet? And by the time they are chopped, the onions are a burnt mess. Well all this could have been prevented if you prepared the ingredients ahead of time.
By: Craig Chambers, www.cookingyourbest.com
Posted
on Saturday, July 7th, 2007 at 11:02 pm and is filed under French Cooking.
RSS 2.0 feed
| leave a response | trackback
